Definition

1. Noun:
   • A strong, unpleasant, and often offensive smell: The quality of having a powerful and disagreeable odor.
   • The state of growing excessively, vigorously, and often coarsely: The property of being extremely fertile and producing abundant, lush, and sometimes wild growth.

Examples of Usage

• Noun:
  • The rankness of the garbage made it hard to stand near the dumpster.
  • Despite the rankness of the swamp, it was teeming with life.
  • The garden's rankness was due to the rich, over-fertilized soil.
  • Farmers sometimes struggle to control the rankness of weeds.

Advanced Usage

• "Lovely in their rankness": A literary or descriptive phrase acknowledging that something (like weeds or wild plants), while growing in an uncontrolled and coarse manner, can possess a certain vigorous beauty.
  • The abandoned lot was filled with flowers, lovely in their rankness.

Variants and Related Words

• Rank (adj): Having a strong, unpleasant smell; growing too thickly or coarsely.
  • The meat had become rank and was inedible.
  • Rank vegetation choked the path.

Synonyms

• Foulness (for smell): The state of having a disgusting smell.
• Luxuriance (for growth): The quality of growing thickly and healthily in abundance.
• Fertility: The quality of being able to produce abundant vegetation or offspring.
• Profusion: An abundance or large quantity of something.

Antonyms

• Bareness: The state of being empty or not covered by growth.
• Sterility: The state of being unable to produce growth or life.
• Fragrance: A pleasant, sweet smell.

Related Phrases and Idioms

(Note: "Rankness" itself is not commonly used in fixed idioms. The related adjective "rank" is used instead.) - Rank and file: The ordinary members of a group, as opposed to its leaders. (This idiom uses "rank" in a different, military-derived sense and is not directly related to the meaning of "rankness".) - To pull rank: To use one's higher position in an organization to gain an advantage or make someone obey. (This also uses a different sense of "rank".)

Noun

1. the attribute of having a strong offensive smell
2. the property of producing abundantly and sustaining vigorous and luxuriant growth
   • he praised the richness of the soil
   • weeds lovely in their rankness